Mexican Misadventures.

Hello all. Time for a quick rundown on our whirlwind tour of a little place called Mexico. Unfortunately due to the current situation in Mexico we decided not to spend any more time than necessary there, so this will be relatively brief for the area we covered, but don't think I'm holding out on you. 

Our first day in Mexico was a complete gong show. Arriving at Nogales felt like walking into the wild west. It appeared to be complete chaos. I've never seen anything like it in any of the other times I've been to Mexico. The border was simple and quick, we think, however, Colin may have ignored the sign suggesting he stop to be searched. No one pursued us though, so I think it was ok. Shortly after that we arrived at mile 21, where us gringos get our visas and import our vehicles. This took roughly 5 hours for the four of us being carted between the office, bank and photocopy shop several times. Patrick, being the ever present minded individual he is forgot that his insurance, and thus registration was expired and was kindly informed that if he couldn't get those documents he would no longer be welcome in the country. Thankfully, Pat's mom was kind enough to bail him out and off we headed for Hermosillo. Upon our Arrival in Hermosillo we were lucky enough to be put in touch with a woman named Norma who was generous enough to cook us dinner and breakfast as well as give us a place to rest our weary heads. 

 

The next morning we took off for a series of long days on the bikes. For the record everything you've heard about Mexican drivers is true. Passing on the solid line, around corners, two cars to a lane... all of it. Lessons learned in Mexico; the only thing more dangerous than keeping pace with traffic is slowing it down, 1/4 ton trucks are capable of hauling roughly 4 tons at highway speed and still passing, speed bumps are a great time to pass and ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS check your mirrors. Aside from the drivers the roads did not put one at ease. When we weren't on toll roads there were some lovely coastal roads vaguely reminding us of the number one in California. That is if the one had no signage, speed bumps, no rules and plenty of gravel. Fun.

The picture below is a semi that had crashed off a cliff shortly before we arrived. It took two semi's to haul it back up. Thankfully the driver was fine. 

Essentially we drove, slept and ate for 10 days, so I'm going to try and talk about what I know, then I'll leave some sweet pics and some descriptions. After Hermosillo we saw Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, Manzanillo, Zihuatanejo,  Salina Cruz, Tapachula and several other small towns with names unknown.

During our little whirlwind tour we ate almost exclusively street food, primarily tacos and pollo asado. Both of which have been added to my list of favourite foods. The traditional Mexican delight of tacos are not the corn hard shell, with ground beef tacos Old El Paso hocks as a delicious supper-time alternative. Instead mexico offers tacos of all varieties, from chicken and beef to tripe and unknown mystery meats with either flour or corn soft shells. I tried at least two of each animal and I assure you all are delicious. Especially with a little salsa verde, and other toppings. 

Pollo asado on the other hand is a hidden gem that is so common in Mexico you'd think they had a vendetta against our feathery chicken friends. Pollo asado is essentially chicken bbq, generally one buys a half chicken, full chicken or as is our case, 2 chickens. The chicken is then served with a variety of sides that can includesuch gems as pickled onions, lettuce, avocado, rice, macaroni, grilled devil peppers, and what ever else was available, along with, of course, Tortillas and salsas. For about 5 bucks you could eat your face off and have a drink to wash it all down.

Enchiladas also make wonderful breakfasts. Bread with egg, jalapenos, ham and mayonnaise. On the sketchier side of street food? Maybe. Delicious? Absolutely. We bought these for the first time outside a gas station in middle of nowhere Mexico, when Patricks bike died. 

 

 

Oh right. Patrick's bike broke. Again. And no it wasn't a simple matter of unpinching a hose, repacking a muffler or replacing missing bolts. He had a short for about 4 days which he couldn't find. So, his good friends had to stand behind his god awefully loud bike and push him so he could start his bike. Good times. So Patrick was not allowed to stop his bike unless absolutely necessary. 

Unfortunately the most memorable moment in Mexico was the two hours spent outside an ugly, touristy city called Acapulco. Just outside of the city we were pulled over by two police officers who had passed us earlier. They proceeded to confiscate all of our licenses and passports...very convincingly... After the typical threats of jail time and deportation his supervisor swung by to make sure everything was "going well," (ensure he was getting his cut). One of the officers then proceeded to tell us to either pay him 2000 pesos each or he would keep our passports and we would be forced to go to the police station to purchase them back. he then refused to give us either of their names, badge numbers and when I tried to check the vehicle license I was physically restrained. After about 1.5 hours of arguing with the two officers who refused to give us our ID, or to escort us to the police station so we could get our IDs back legitimately, he did graciously offer to arrest us though. Refusing to leave without ID, and not wanting to be arrested and have to leave our bikes on the side of the road, we paid the officers about $70 US and hightailed it out of that God forsaken hellhole.

Big Sur Claims a KLR

Long over-due? Yes. Absolutely. Deal with it.

My last day in San Fran, while the other boys did there own thing, I walked across the street to check out the dirty hippies at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, a huge open-air festival including 6 stages for much of the week. Last year attendance was over 800,000 people. Incredible energy and culture to the festival as everything from the Blind Boys of Alabama to MC Hammer to Robert Plant play.

After leaving San Fran we continued along the one through Big Sur, the mecca of motorcycling in North America, and it absolutely lived up to expectations. Beautiful vistas through forest to cliffs lining the ocean. All on slow tight, twisty roads and in beautiful weather. The day could not have been going better, until Billy decided that the road had looked at him funny and needed a stern talking to. In one fluid motion he threw his motorcycle into a cliff and pounced upon the unsuspecting road. Thankfully both parties escaped relatively unharmed, the road does have a nice scar now, however, where Billy caught it with a piece of motorcycle. Needless to say the bike lost out of all three parties and needed to be towed to the nearest town, San Luis Obisbo.

This unfortunate turn of events did have a silver lining. As Billy waited to deal with insurance we were stuck in SLO, a place we would never have stopped otherwise, and now I can't wait to go back to. SLO has some of the nicest people I've ever met. Bill's tow truck driver, Brett, was a middle aged surfer, who'd surfed all through Mexico, Central and much of South America. He was full of good advice and better stories. He even helped us find a place to stay.

The next night, after discovering the magic of a $20 1.75L bottle of rum, and $1 tacos, we met some of kids from Cal Poly. They took us to a local brew pub called SLOBrew. College town heaven. Every table was full of university students playing drinking games. We made friends.

A few nights later, who should show up at our hotel door but Brett, our tow truck driver, with Joe. Joe was a 50 something carpenter from New Jersey who'd gotten a flat on the number 1 and Joe wanted to party. There happened to be a street food festival on, so we grabbed supper with Joe, who was a most gracious host and we traded stories of the road and life while we had a few drinks. As fate should have it, as Joe decided to take off in favour of a more refined bar, we met up with our Tuesday night friends as well as some more.

Oh. We also did lots of hiking. Both Madonna and Bishop Peak were great local hikes up volcanic plugs. Bishop was especially fun. There are two routes up this 1500 foot hill. One of moderate difficulty and one difficult. We (Bill, Pat and I... Colin was feeling ill) decided to disregard the "paths" in favour of a scramble straight up the face of the rock. A great four point scramble along a half formed path from climbers in the past.

Once things had been taken care of, the road had been named victor of the scuffle and Billy's bike deemed ready for replacement he flew ahead to Phoenix to purchase his shiny new BMW while the other three of us rode in over two days. After the first half hour of coast the roads to Phoenix were not worth further discussion, so I'll hit some highlights.
-driving on the historic Route 66
and that about sums that up.

We did end up having our first real interesting camping experience. In a Route 66 town named Ludlow. Estimated Population, 6. There was however, a gas station, motel and big pile of rotting concrete that used to be houses. We were just setting up to camp in a parking lot when a rail worker, and Ducati rider, showed up and suggested some trails and that we sleep in the nearby rail yard as it would be more quite than being near the highway and safer as well. This sounded fair, so we took him up on his offer. Promptly after finishing setting up the tent, as supper was boiling away a train came by. Roughly 150 feet from our front door. They proceded to come every 40 or so minutes throughout the night... Ugh.

After 11 hours of something vaguely resembling sleep we continued in to Phoenix to meet with Billy and my aunt, uncle and cousin. Phoenix is just a sprawling metropolis, so once we were settled we did not go far. We went out on the first night with my cousin Jaime who introduced us to some of her friends and the following day we spent most of the afternoon playing golf at the local links.

After the weekend Bill was able to pick up his bike from across town, a mere 110 km jaunt, one way. Other than that we primarily spent time sorting our time through Mexico as well as insurance and the like.

Well. That seems like a reasonable enough update. Mexico to come soon. Expect more regular updates, it's been a wild ride.

Bray